MASS SOCIETY

Mass Society refers to a society
with a mass culture and large-scale, impersonal, social institutions. Even the most
complex and modern societies have lively primary group social relationships, so the
concept of 'Mass Society' can be thought of as an ideal type, since it does
not exist in empirical reality.

'Mass Society' is intended to
draw attention to the way in which life in complex societies, with great specialization
and rationalized institutions, can become too anonymous and impersonal and fail to support
adequate bonds between the individual and the community. The concept of 'Mass Society'
reflects the same concern in sociology - loss of community - that Tonnies expressed in his
idea of Gesellschaft.

The study of leisure in a mass
society requires the study of the mass media - perhaps the primary agent of
'massification.' We live in a society saturated by mass media. Virtually all forms of
leisure have been affected by this increasingly powerful agent of socialization. Of all
forms of mass media, television has emerged to become the most powerful media.

In mass society, typically the
structure of interaction is bureaucratically organized. The need for instrumental control
of behavior to purposes divorced from the life process in capitalist society has lead to
the bureaucracy as the major instrument of social control. Interaction in bureaucracy and
other formal organizations is so brief, impersonal, and narrowly focussed that the
development of a self-system is difficult.

In mass society, typically the
structure of interaction is bureaucratically organized. The need for instrumental control
of behavior to purposes divorced from the life process in capitalist society has lead to
the bureaucracy as the major instrument of social control. - T.R.Young

Communication Problems in a Mass
Society: Mass Audience, Mass Communication & Development. - Moemeka Andrew
A.
Abstract: This paper examines the problem of how to reconcile the practical realities of
the nature of the mass audience with the demands of personal and social development,
particularly in Africa and other Third World Countries, where the demands of modernization
have confronted traditional norms and values. After defining and clarifying key concepts
such as development, communication, mass communication, mass society, mass audience, and
types of audience participation, the paper explores the relationship between the mass
media and the mass audience, and discusses the effects of the media in terms of conflict
theory, social criticism, and the theories of ideological effects.